Tag: website hosting

Where your website is hosted can be just important as any other part of your marketing campaign. Without reliable service, your site might not be seen when it really matters, including holidays and other important high traffic days. Here are some signs of an unreliable web host, if any red flags come up, it might just be time to switch!

1) Offering deals that sound too good to be true: Are you signing up for plans that only “cost” $1 a month or come with unlimited bandwidth? While these things sounds great on the surface, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. For example, buying the bare minimum package and having to add more services (which can really add up).
Having an unlimited plan sounds great, but is everyone receiving the same deal? At some point, traffic can overload servers and your unlimited plan may result in a lot of website down time.

2) Slow website loading time: Sometimes, having a big or super busy website can slow down your load time. Other times, your hosting company just might be overloaded, causing your pages to slow down and deter visitors. Check out Google PageSpeed Insights to see what the problem is.

3) Bad reviews and reputation: Do your research and check out what customers have to say on review sites. It’s understandable to have a few bad reviews but if the overwhelming majority is negative, it’s not really worth it to save yourself a couple of bucks each month for a semi-reliable host.

4) Unreliable customer service: Is your web hosting company closed on weekends? Do they keep you on hold for hours when you’re trying to call? A reliable company offers support when you need it and through different ways: email, phone, online chat, forums, social media and more. Don’t limit yourself on when you can talk to your web host.

5) Bad Advice: Some web developers handle the hosting aspect for you, but they can also offer very risky advice. For example, I recently heard a client was advised to let his domain expire and then re-purchase it! All because the developer was too lazy to get the login information needed to renew the site…

Were you affected by GoDaddy’s outage this past Monday? Millions of websites were down due to an Anonymous hacker, although GoDaddy claims that the down time was caused by internal errors… Nonetheless, unhappy customers took to Twitter to complain, curse and swear off the service altogether. GoDaddy has offered 1 month of free service to customers but it might be too little, too late for the company.

GoDaddy has been no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to their marketing. The company is best known for their spokeswoman, Danica Patrick and putting scantily clad females on screen whenever possible. The downside on relying on “sexy” commercial ads is that it probably isn’t enough to boost GoDaddy’s credibility as a reliable web host. Another point of controversy was when GoDaddy openly supported SOPA until an influx of customer complaints came in. The company quickly reversed its position of supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act.

As an online marketing firm, we deal with many, many different web hosting companies. HostGator is an excellent alternative option that has been reliable for us over the years. Some benefits of choosing HostGator include: affordability, user-friendly control panel, accessible customer support and quality service.

Let us know what you think of GoDaddy, HostGator or any other website hosting services that you would recommend.

Website hosting is an important but often overlooked step when preparing a new site. Whereas some may think to find the “cheapest” option available, it helps in the long run to choose a company that can accommodate your business needs. Cheap is cheap and you get what you pay for in web hosting. That doesn’t mean that you have to pay a monthly fortune… but instead, be more aware of the options you have and the ones you should look for:

Reliable servers – Does the company have a good track record? Search the company name + reviews to find out what other customers have to say. When your site is hosted on an unreliable server, your site may go down. Your site could even be hacked and injected with virus – not a fun thing to deal with or explain to clients!

Watch out for hidden fees – While some companies offer a low upfront fee, they may try to tack on additional costs when you need something else. For example, fees for email, website backup, and fees to transfer a domain – which is something that should commonly be included in the price you initially pay.

Customer service that’s readily available – Nothing’s worse than seeing that your website is down and having no one to help you out. Let’s say you sell jewelery online and your site is down during peak-Valentine’s Day buying hours. During this precious time lost, you will be losing potential customers and there’s nothing that you can do to make it up, except prepare for precautions in the first place. In a more serious scenario, imagine that the company operates on limited hours and is not open during the weekends. Who will be there to help you when you need assistance? Can your business really afford to wait?

Flexible options – All small businesses are not alike and understandably so, you should have a variety of different hosting options. Make sure that you don’t get locked into something that you don’t understand clearly and that there is room for upgrades or downgrades, if necessary.

Here are some helpful resources to check out before you choose a web host. And if you need the opinion of a website marketing firm, we’re always here to help!